


Come On Down

by captaintinymite (augopher)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alive Laura Hale, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe- The Price is Right, Drew Carey only makes an appearance as host of the show, Feels, Getting Together, Kindergarten Teacher Derek Hale, Laura and Cora run a wolf sanctuary, Librarian Stiles, M/M, Meet-Cute, Model Derek Hale, bucket lists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-10
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-06-01 02:07:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6496609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/augopher/pseuds/captaintinymite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles has been working to complete the unfinished items on his mother's bucket list for a while now. He's down to the last two items on her list of twenty-five: Appear on the Price is Right and <i>See Stiles meet that special someone</i>.</p><p>He's got the first one of those in the bag when he hears those famed words, "...come on down! You're the next contestant on <i>The Price is Right</i>." Little did he know, he'd manage to complete the second one too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Come On Down

 

“Are you sure about this?” Scott asked as he and Stiles  followed the rest of the people standing in line with them into the building. “I mean, they probably won’t even pick you. Look at all these other people. Even then, you have to guess correctly.” **  
**

Stiles looked over at his best friend and rolled his eyes. “Way to be a downer, Scott.” He pulled a folded piece of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket. Slightly yellowed with age and showing evidence of having been unfolded and refolded dozens of times, the paper was of great significance. With care, he opened the paper, revealing twenty-five lines of text, and all but three had been crossed off. He turned the sheet around and held it up to Scott’s face, tapping his finger on line fifteen. “You see this here? I don’t even care if I win anything. I have to do this.”

It had been a five-year effort to complete the remaining items on his mother’s bucket list. He’d seen and done amazing things he never would have dreamed of. Seeing the Pyramids, the Great Wall, and snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef had done wonders for his relationship with his dad. It had been the father-son bonding trip of a lifetime, and maybe that had been his mom’s intent after all. Because, sure he’d only been ten at the time, but he was positive his mother would never be caught dead swimming within fifty miles of a shark.

He and his dad had seen four while on their trip. Once that thrum of fear had subsided–none of the giant fish seemed to want anything to do with time–he simply enjoyed the sheer and awe inspiring beauty of it all. Up close, sharks were breathtaking, paragon’s of killing power and yet, stunning and amazing to watch.

He’d brushed his hands along the shell of a sea turtle for crying out loud.

Appearing on _The Price is Right_ seemed a cinch by comparison. Once they’d received their name tags and been assigned a seat, they shuffled dutifully to their seats to await the start of filming. It seemed the moment he sat down that his nerves began to creep into his awareness. By the time Drew Carey appeared in the middle of the soundstage, he’d all but bitten his nails down to the quick.

Scott reached over and grabbed his hand away from his mouth. “Stop that.”

Stiles looked down at his nail beds, wishing he’d remembered to paint them with that pepper nail polish he’d been using to stop his nail biting habit. “Yeah, sorry.”

The producer made some announcements about the filming process, etiquette, and welcoming their new models on their first day. Stiles watched in a blur as the first few contestants after the initial four selected. He felt like he was going to be sick. Scott had been right. This was a terrible idea.

“Stiles Stilinski, you’re the next contestant on _The Price is Right_! Come on down!” It took a few seconds for him to realize his name had been called, and then all the anxiety seemed to vanish in an instant.

Beside him, Scott was jumping up and down like the excited human embodiment of a golden retriever he was. “Oh my God! I can’t believe they called your name!”

“I know!” He whooped and hollered, giving the rest of the audience members in his row high-fives as he made his way to the aisle where he skipped, literally skipped down to contestant row.

“Hey, welcome to the show!” Drew Carey said.

Stiles’ place was in between a woman who reminded him of Betty White and a man who seemed to be an ardent patron of a tanning salon.

“All right everyone. You have one chance to bid. Don’t blow it. Here’s the prize.”

From his booth on the side of the stage, the announcer, George introduced the prize. “We have a gaming console and entertainment package. The console features a one terabyte hardrive, two wireless controllers, a pair of high definition wireless headset, a three year extended service plan, two games, and a gift card for a one year subscription to the online gaming service. This all can be yours if the price is right.”

The audience cheered, and Stiles gave a smirk. If there was one area of merchandise that Stiles knew like the back of his hand, it was geekery. He had this.

“Stiles, you get the first bid.”

He adjusted the microphone in front of his face. “Nine hundred five dollars, Drew.”

The Betty White lookalike thought for a bit. “Six hundred.”

“One dollar,” came the bid from the middle aged man at the end of the row.

“Eleven seventy-five,” Sir Tans-a-lot said.

Drew looked at the card in his hand. “Actual retail price is $908. That means, Stiles, you win. Come on up.”

Stiles did a little happy dance on his way up the few stairs to the stage. It was a slightly feigned response, because to be honest? He felt tears welling in his eyes. This was his mom’s dream–Lord knows why, but it was–and now here he was. It made the hope that he’d be able to complete the last item on the list ( _‘See Stiles find that special someone_ ’) come back to life. Not everyone was blessed with being lucky in love, and so far, he had been anything but lucky.

In fact, he’d been so spectacularly _un_ lucky that it would be hilarious if he hadn’t been the one to experience it.

“Congratulations, Stiles.”

Drew read Stiles’ shirt. “That’s an honorable thing to do. So she was a fan of the show?”

Stiles nodded. “We both were. We’d watch it together when I was little. Her favorite game was Cliff Hangers.”

“Well, let’s see what we have in store for you, Stiles. See if we can’t get you some more fabulous prizes to go with that gaming console. George, what do we have for him?”

“Well, Drew, he can game it up in style on his trip to New York City.”

Stiles grinned. He’d always wanted to go to New York, see the Mets play. Then the display turned around, and he could focus on nothing else but the model standing next to the video screen. Gorgeous was not a word that could even begin to describe the specimen of male beauty standing before him. His mouth went dry.

The suit the man wore was tailored to perfection; he looked like James Bond in it. Stiles was torn between wanting to climb him like a tree or offer him a martini.

“You and a guest will fly round-trip coach from Los Angeles to New York for a five night stay at the lovely Marriott Marquis located in the heart of Broadway and a block from Times Square. You’ll be staying in a Premier corner room with a view of Times Square. Daily breakfast included,” George said.

Stiles’ mind, however, was blank, save from the perfect image of the model’s face.

“Thank you, Derek. How about that? Uh, here’s the game. It’s called the Check Game. It’s- Now, where do you live?”

“Beacon Hills, California.”

“Well, the airfare is from L.A. to New York. So it’s cross country. That’s the airfare. Coach for two people round-trip, and five nights in New York. All right? Now, what you’re gonna do is figure out the amount of the prize, and then you’re gonna write us a check. And when we add the amount of the check and the prize value together, the total has to fall between $7000 and $8000. All right? Pretty simple game.”

“He sure is. Beautiful eyes. So very, very pretty,” Stiles found himself blurting out before he even had a chance to think about what he was saying. Beginning at the back of his neck, a bright red blush spread until his whole face looked like a tomato. He facepalmed when Drew began to chuckle beside him.

“Well, I’m sure Derek is very flattered. Here’s the pen. The official Price is Right Check Game Pen. Go over there and fill in the amount in the white space on the check.”

Then pen weighed ten tons in his hand. He was clueless, completely clueless. So he looked to the audience for guidance, but all he saw was a sea of raised hands holding up a varying number of fingers. In the back of the audience, he saw Scott just shrug.

Well, shit. He glanced over at Derek to find him smiling, warmly at that, at him. Okay, so at least the guy wasn’t pissed off, or worse, offended.

“The value of the trip plus the amount of the check has to be between seven and eight thousand,” Drew reminded him.

Without even the slightest idea of the price, he made an educated guess and filled in his answer on the check. His fingers shook as he wrote.

“Three thousand dollars even.” Drew held out his hand for Stiles to shake. “Good luck, man. I’ll take the pen for you.” He set the pen back in its holder. “Okay, let’s put the check amount up here. Three thousand dollars, there we go. Derek, how much is it for a trip to New York City?”

He looked over to see Derek flip his sign around.

“It is $4338…it looks like…”

And then the bell started ringing. Holy shit! He’d won!

Drew announced the commercial break, which meant there would be a break in filming, and he was escorted off stage and into a green room to wait for the Showcase Showdown. Moments later, there was a knock on the door, a production assistant popped her head into the room.

“Excuse me. There’s someone out here who needs to speak with you, Stiles.”

He followed her out of the room where he found, of all people, Derek standing in the dim light of backstage. No longer exuding the confidence Stiles had seen on stage. Now, he stood looking almost…timid.

“Look, I’m sorry if what said made you uncomfortable. My dad says I have a terminal case of Foot-in-Mouth disease.”

When Derek chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck, Stiles was positive he wasn’t going to get his ass kicked, well mostly certain, pretty sure…eh like twenty percent sure. But hey, twenty percent was better than zero percent. So there was that to look forward to.

“Actually, um, Drew was right. I was flattered, and…um…you too.”

“Oh my God. Well aren’t we a pair of awkward turtles! Seems the flirting stork felt disinclined to bless us with game. Not that I ever get the time to hone my skills with the hours I pull.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a research librarian. I know, scintillating, right?”

This time, instead of a nervous chuckle, Derek broke out in genuine laughter, a large and breathtaking smile spreading across his face. Stiles felt his heart skip that clichéd beat.

“I admit, funny guys are my weakness,” Derek said, his voice soft and earnest.

“Well, then. I’m your guy. I use humor to diffuse all kinds of awkward situations, and when that doesn’t work, I am a rambling machine. No tidbit of useless information is off limits.”

Derek averted his eyes, his cheeks blooming in a faint tinge of pink.

“So um… you’re a model. That’s a rough business to get into. I wish you the best of luck. You certainly look the part.”

“No, I don’t do this full time,” Derek said with a smirk. “It’s just my summer job.”

“Ah. You’re an ice-fisherman, I see.”

Derek’s shoulders began to shake as he burst out in full body laughter, covering his mouth to keep from making too much noise. After a minute of Stiles finding himself wanting, desperately, to get to know Derek. More than that though. He felt like he was supposed to get to know him.

“I’m a kindergarten teacher.”

Stiles placed his hand on his chest. “Be still my geeky heart. Handsome, great eyes, looks cute blushing, _and_ good with children! If you tell me you have a house full of puppies, I may just have to marry you.”

With a small grin playing at the corners of his mouth, Derek shook his head. “You’re…I have a Holland Lop, General Ackbar.”

Stiles should have been embarrassed by the ‘awwww’ that escaped from his lips, but he wasn’t. Instead, he found himself saying, “ _It’s a trap!_ ”

Which was apparently, the perfect thing to say, because Derek reached into his pocket for his phone, fiddled around on the screen for a moment, before showing him a picture of a litter of puppies. “But um…my sisters run a wolf sanctuary up near Truckee. They have lots of pups every spring.”

“That’s it…you’re officially my dream guy. I’m gonna gave to marry you.”

“How about we do drinks and dinner first?” Derek winked at him.

****

Several months later, as he stepped outside JFK airport in New York City, Derek clutching tightly to his hand, Stiles took out that folded piece of paper, and with a quick glance up to the heavens where he was certain his mom was watching, happily crossed of item number twenty-five. 

**Author's Note:**

> come visit me on [Tumblr](http://http://captaintinymite.tumblr.com/)


End file.
